Why boys can't cry and girls can't play with robots? on gender stereotypes

Why can't boys cry and girls can't play with robots? British poet Holly McNish wrote a powerful poem about the dangers of gender stereotypes and made a video on it. At the beginning of the video, McNish herself appears in two outfits: a “girlish” pink fur coat and a dark baseball jacket. She opens her message in poetic form with the phrase: “Pink or blue? Let's start."

The video was posted by the Upworthy website , whose creators are fighting the negative image of women and their objectification in the media, and also advocate gender equality. The project defines its mission as follows: "Change what the world pays attention to." In a week, the video has collected about nine million views, more than a hundred thousand reposts and thousands of controversial comments only on the official Facebook page of the site .

The author of the video talks about how gender stereotypes affect each of us, and categorically questions their necessity. McNish does not directly name the gender or gender she is talking about, and uses stereotypes that everyone understands: pink for girls, blue for boys. “A child in pink collects a wreath of daisies - cute. A child in blue collects a wreath of daisies - gay, ”says McNish. The video also touches on gender roles: “The blue one is told to get rich, the pink one is to have children.” At the end of the video, the poetess concludes: “Children are born naked. Welcome to the world." Poet Holly McNish is known for her statements about equality and the position of women in society. For example, her poem Confused about the stigmatization of breastfeeding has amassed 1.5 million views on YouTube.